Solar- a curious resemblance to the Maltese Falcon

While there have been rumours about a new 'Maltese Falcon' style of superyacht around for months, Italian design studio Nuvolari Lenard Design have now announced that they are behind the rumours.

Their announcement reads: 'Nuvolari Lenard Design is behind the 106 meter S/Y Solar project contracted to Oceanco Shipyard. The design studio is responsible both for exterior and interior design-decoration, a common practice on most of our projects.

'Few details can be released at this point but with beam of 15 metres she will be entering within a 3000GRT rule. The delivery is scheduled for 2015.

'Superyacht Solar is being built under the supervision of the renowned Moran Yacht & Ship new construction team.'

While the same sort of mast may give the idea that the new Solar is a copy of the Maltese Falcon to the innocent observer, the design studio denies this.

While not much has been divulged so far, apart from being 18 metres longer than the 88 metre Maltese Falcon, it is, apparently, a completley different concept from Maltese Falcon, starting from the reverse bow, the hull shape and the added deck.

As for the rig, according to Nuvolari Lenard Design, the DynaRig was invented in 1960 and is not a property of Perini Navi, the designers of the Maltese Falcon. However it is notable that the naval architect company behind this project is a Dutch company Gerard Dijkstra & Partner, also one of the designers of the Maltese Falcon.

Explaining why the hull is steel and not aluminium, Nuvolari Lenard Design said, 'When we designed Felicità West built by Perini we learned that the benefit of weight saving - when building in aluminum especially above 500GRT due to extreme structural stress and additional isolation - dissolves and that the space loss due to double or even triple dimensions of main structural elements (compared to steel option) simply drives toward steel as a logical choice.'

About the DynaRig:
The DynaRig owes its origin to work done in the 1960s by Wilhelm Prölss; at the time he believed the system could provide additional propulsion for ships.

The DynaRig is effectively a square rig, the mast is freestanding and the yards are connected rigidly to the mast. The yards, unlike a conventional square rigger, have built-in camber. The concept has the sails set between the yards in such a way that when deployed there are no gaps to the sail plan, enabling each mast's sail plan to work as a single sail.

The sails, when not deployed, furl into the mast. The sail is trimmed to the wind direction by rotating the mast. As there is no rigging, the yards have no restriction on rotation and this, taken together with the curved (shaped) yards, low windage and effective single-piece sail, combine to give the rig improved aerodynamic efficiency compared to a traditional square rigger.

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